You will not buy big prize with change

WHAT if Manchester City won the Champions League before Chelsea? Roman Abramovich might be so infuriated that he would give up football in frustration and bafflement and turn back to Russian ice hockey.

Alternatively, he would despatch his yacht up the Ship Canal to hijack whoever might be manager at Eastlands at the time of this admittedly theoretical event and tell him to repeat the magic for Chelsea. Or else.

As Carlo Ancelotti begins casting around for a new job, drawn in and spat out by the ravenous Abramovich machine within two seasons, City’s owners are offering the first glimmers of evidence that they have begun to understand that it is stability and long-term planning which usually bring success in football.

Between the powerhouses of stupendous private wealth in the Premier League, a differing approach is beginning to emerge.

After 521 days, Roberto Mancini remains in charge of City and he seems set fair to lead their assault on the title and the principal European competition next season.

After 521 days, Roberto Mancini remains in charge of Manchester City

By the standards some expected from the ruling family of Abu Dhabi, who dumped Mark Hughes soon after they took command, they seem to have opted for calm and long-term strategy. At least a first crystallisation of the idea that has served their rivals across the city so well. This has happened because Mancini met the targets he was set and qualified for the Champions League, as well as delivering the FA Cup.

If he hadn’t, it might well be the case that Mancini would have been given the hard word in the corridor on Sunday afternoon just as Ancelotti was by Abramovich’s acolytes.

Failure to win the title or make an impact in the Champions League next season may prompt a reversion to the stereotype of impatient ownership.

But this season Mancini did as he was asked – and in the results business, that is all that matters for now.

If the owners keep their nerve and back it with multi-millions, they could well beat Chelsea to the prize Abramovich covets so much. The lessons of the past three years, in which Manchester United and Barcelona have twice been pitted against each other in the final and in which the old aristocrats of Inter Milan finally reasserted their power, have made it plain that this is an elite which is difficult to bust apart.

But it seems highly unlikely that Chelsea will find a way into the inner circle while the place is subject to so much upheaval so often.

Some will argue that Abramovich’s policy of constant change has brought success. Three titles in eight years is a massive return. By anyone else’s reckoning anyway. Yet he is only really interested in one thing.

Even in the season in which they came closest to Champions League success, 2007-08, it wasn’t the work of Avram Grant which led them to the final in Moscow against United.

No, it was still the team and the method put in place by Jose Mourinho which was the bedrock. If Abramovich cares to ponder this, it will then be plain that it was long-term planning – or the nearest Chelsea have come to it – which took them to within a missed penalty kick of the prize. He chucked it all up in the air of course. And since Mourinho’s departure, he has worked his way through four more bosses, including the only man other than the Special One to win the European Cup twice within the past decade. Yes, that is Ancelotti.

No wonder Abramovich is thinking of recalling Guus Hiddink, because he is fast running out of new men to whom he can turn.